Notes On On the Road
by Jack Kerouac
This is the second Kerouac novel I've read, after Dharma Bums a couple years ago, and the second time I've attempt to read this particular one after failing due to distraction even more years ago.
The first time around I managed around a third of the book. I loved it. But distraction, most likely from moving country for the first of six separate times, caused me to put it down. Although it took me around seven years to pick it up again, it was actually that same copy of the book I picked up; I carried it with me in a suitcase from place to place. That first time around I'd only ever lived in England, but had long dreamt of living elsewhere, particularly the US, so perhaps I felt I wasn't ready to read it. Whether I made that assessment at the time, hindsight tells me that it was probably true. Having lived in six different cities in three different countries in the intervening years, it's effect was far more profound this time around. I picked it up and finished it in a couple of days, reading at a non-negotiable pace seemingly dictated by the chaos of Dean Moriarty.
When you move from place to place endlessly chasing that elusive sense of self you hope a new "home" will give you, when you fail to find it, a certain cynicism descends upon you. Like the dreamers of the 60s, you end up not believing in anything in particular any more. It's a wisdom that many fail to find (think of all the people you know that will one day write that book or leave their partner or go on their dream trip), but it's a tough pill to swallow. It leaves you faced with the toughest question of all, but one which you know has no good answer: what now? What do you do now there's no land left that holds the secrets to your happiness?
On The Road is Kerouac's recounting of him and his friend's desperate struggle to find an answer to that question, and their failure to do so.